In 2018, a study came out with data suggesting that Spain would lead the world in life expectancy by 2040. For years, Japan and Monaco have topped the list. Why do some countries almost always have an advantage in life expectancy? Is Spain gaining longevity from the siestas and if so, how do I sell my boss on this?
There’s wiggle room for diet and lifestyle, but the punchline? It’s money.
Today’s Moment of Science… great life expectancy data.
The Lancet study forecasting life expectancy, based on data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) was released in October of 2018. The GBD is an ongoing project that tracks trends in cause of death data with an extra focus on tracking loss of life quality due to disease. It has a set of readily available tools for comparing mortality data from around the world (linked below). The Lancet study individually examined 250 causes of death that the GBD study tracked from 1990 until 2016.
Several reputable organizations track life expectancy: the UN, WHO, the CIA, the OECD, and the GBD study. They pull data from some of the same sources, and their projections are typically similar, but can vary a bit.
Life expectancy studies track some fairly standard health data: trends in causes of mortality and illnesses, drug, alcohol, and tobacco usage, and general health markers. Then there are bigger events that affect health, ongoing conflicts, status of HIV/AIDS management (18 countries are considered as ‘high HIV’ rate countries by the WHO), and economic instability. Limited access to medicine, and specifically vaccines, can also be a huge factor in the lower life expectancy in developing nations.
Access to birth control and OB/GYN services is consistently a factor in life expectancy. In war torn and developing nations, limited access to doctors and specifically OB/GYN services comes with a wealth of other problems. This generally occurs concurrently with higher rates of unwanted pregnancies, a lower average maternal age, higher rates of infant mortality, and in some countries, drastically inflated rates of women dying in childbirth.
These forecasts are typically for how long the average child born today would be expected to live based on trends in their home country. So if you see that life expectancy has gone up in Spain and you’re an American born in the 1980s having a mid-life crisis, maybe just eat more fruit instead of trying to move to a new continent.
The study predicted a range of outcomes, allowing for changes in hundreds of variables in the next two decades. As it’s been a few years since the study came out, it’s likely some projections may already have changed as the pandemic did not impact every country equally.
At least until the pandemic, life expectancy in the US was about eighty years, which was pretty good. We’re doing well in the US on things like sanitation, access to medication, and access to birth control. We’re actually pretty good at treating cancer, having one of the top five year survival rates from cancer. But now that we’ve escaped malaria, polio, and famine, we’re trying to figure out how to handle our excess good fortune. Major risk factors associated with premature mortality in the US include smoking, elevated BMI, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar.
Even with access to resources to keep ourselves alive for a while, we’re not always the most responsible about using them. If you want to get yourself as far as your genetics will allow, you need to do the basics. Get your vaccines, use condoms, go for an annual checkup and mainstream gynecological care. Go for a walk once in a while, and if you’re thinking of smoking, re-think that.
And if all that fails, move to Spain.
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